Four
by Miss Lily Rose Snape
Summary: Four. Harry/Hermione. Ron/Luna.


The day Luna sees Hermione home from the hospital holding a baby with a green eyes like his father, something inside her twists. She calls in sick at work and sits on the kitchen floor, eating her weight in sadness and carbohydrates but she doesn't shed a single tear until Ron comes home, and sits next to her, holds her hand. His legs stretch out all over the place and he used to have a way of making her feel safe, a long time ago, but now, now she can't feel anything with him. She cries and he just holds her, but he doesn't ask what's wrong. They both know, they know that just because they're together now doesn't mean they're supposed to be. It's all about second choices.

It began differently in high school. Hermione _never_would have been Harry's first choice. He knows she loved Ron sometime in high school, everyone did. She spent her days with Ron and her nights with Harry. He didn't care she was using him, he was too drunk on Luna for it to matter, she was _his_first choice. But then Luna made it clear she was _in_ love with Ron, and Ron made it clear he was _in_ love with Luna, and Hermione and Harry fell into a second pattern of sleepless days and nights, trying to forget.

Sixth year, Hermione woke up next to him and never left, giggling non-stop with tousled brown hair, and he's never wanted somebody else since. He brushes her hair back from her eyes every night and sees her, really _sees_ her, and she grins and steals all the covers. They never finish each other's sentences and they burst into arguments on a _constant_ basis but they dance together in the living room; their children peek out from by the staircase and swoon at the romance of it _all._

Hermione's never doubted she's spending her happily ever after with the right boy, even years _years_ later. She may have wanted Ron originally but she hit every milestone with Harry. The first kiss was after she kicked him in the shins for throwing a jinx on her, the first fight when he stole her favourite Shakespeare book to be cute, the first time she saw Ron holding Luna's hand, she feigned sick for the first time and came home. Minutes later, Harry came with ice cream, and new books, and they spent the day in bed for the first time. The first best kiss was when they realized there _is_ no one else. It's his hand she wants to hold _everywhere_, everywhere since she first learned what home really is, the hand she _never_ wants to let go of.

Ron isn't as stupid as everyone believes. He notices the changes between everyone then, how Luna darkens in a room when Harry walks in holding Hermione's hand, his thumb circling her palm, tracing hearts. He sees the looks his _best_ friend sneaks her when she isn't looking, the way his arm circles her waist, the way he kisses the side of her forehead _just_because he can. He assumes its' a phase they're going through, they can't _be_ serious. They're the worst couple, they argue and fight; they never agree on anything and between the two of them, there's _always_some kind of temper tantrum. But the days pass, he serenades her in the Great Hall, the weeks, they kiss _everywhere_, the weeks turn into months, she's wearing his shirts and sweaters, and the relationship doesn't end.

That spring day Hermione ran down from the Great Hall entrance to the Gryffindor table, her hair flying everywhere behind her, she was running and running, she was _flying_, and Ron was sure she was _finally_ running to him, she woke up to her senses, she was_the_one, when he blinked and she was hugging the wrong boy, all _over_ again. He's never been jealous of his best friend, not until the day _the_girl picked the _other_ boy.

High school comes and goes, the four graduate and the happy photographs hide everything underneath. They keep in touch, ignoring the lingering awkwardness. Two years after graduation, the four of them take a weekend away together in the summer house, and everyone is happy; it _almost_ feels like old times. Until Hermione surprises her one morning and proposes on the sand and she didn't let him get in a _single_ word, and just jumped and kept saying _yes._ She toppled him on the sand, and Ron and Luna clap and smile, and once back at the house, they claim work engagements and family problems, and other excuses and catch the first train away, away from the fairy tale they're never going to live. They can't bear to watch the happiness they're never going to be a part of.

The day Hermione and Harry have their engagement party, the foursome reunite again; all four have smiles but only two are genuine. Luna tries to kiss Harry during the party, when she corners him in the kitchen, and whispers if he ever thinks of her, if he'd go back and change anything, and he looks at her, like he doesn't _even_ know her, and he walks back to his fiancée, he walks home to Hermione because he's marrying _her_. Ron and Luna plaster their fake smiles long enough until the last guest leaves and the night ends, and proceed to drink enough alcohol, separately, to stay hungover for a week. It's enough to dull them emotionally but its' never enough to dull the reality of the situation. Alcohol covers the lies for only so long.

Later that year, Ron is Harry's best man, _of course_, and the day she walks down the aisle to someone else, he pretends it's him she's walking to. She's barefoot on the beach sand, the same sand where someone _else_ proposed, and she's smiling, she has the grin that makes him stumble _every_time he sees it. He imagines the white picket fence and the soccer rehearsals, the little girl with her mom's eyes and the twins with their dad's smile, the grumpy cat, the home they could build. He wants to say something to stop this but he _can't_, and he doesn't, and when Harry kisses her 'I do', actually marries Hermione, Ron wakes up long enough for something inside him to die.

The wedding is beautiful, and the toasts make everyone cry. Harry sweeps Hermione for their first dance, and his hand is in hers, like it's been there all along, and there's _something_ about them that no one can describe. Ron dances with Luna at the reception for old times sake, he doesn't feel anything with her hand in his but come the end of the night, he asks her out anyway. They date and date but he doesn't propose marriage until he's sure there's no alternative, that Hermione and Harry are not getting a divorce anytime soon, not when they love each other as much as they do.

When Luna walks down that aisle, she imagines it's to the best man, not to the groom. She glances at Harry out of the corner of her eye, and he doesn't make eye contact, he wasn't _even_ looking at her walk. She focuses back on Ron and wonders how to spend _forever_ with the wrong one. She makes it to the front of the church and Ron is looking at her, and she sees Harry behind him making eye contact with her maid of honor, and she pretends that smile was for her, not for his wife behind _her_, and she makes it through the ceremony with flying colors. Ron kisses her at the appropriate time and Luna forces herself to kiss back, convincing herself, this is what she's _always_ wanted, this is _who_she's always wanted.

Ron watched Luna come down the aisle that day, she was beautiful, and blonde and she has an edge Hermione doesn't replicate. She's supposed to have been the one since high school, since when they were attending Quidditch Matches and he was winning and she was cheering, when they walked through the school like leaders, when he threw paper airplanes at her in Potions but sometimes, she doesn't feel like _the_ one. The next day, the next morning he wakes up next to a head of blonde hair, and he's disappointed its' not brown. He rolls over to the other side and he wonders where Hermione is, and if she's happy as she looks, as everyone says she is.

Months later, the day of Potter housewarming party; three kids later, they_had_ to move, Luna catches Hermione and Harry trying to christen _their_ kitchen counter, she stammers an apology and locks herself in the nearest bathroom and vomits for an hour. The moment she thinks there's nothing more to come, she's blindsided when it rises to the top and the cycle starts again. She can't stop the projector playing in her head, the way Hermione's legs are wrapped around Harry, the way his hand touched her face, he's _still_ so in love with her after all these years, and she wonders where it all went wrong, why she let him go when she _had_ him.

The next day, she learns she's pregnant and Ron says all the right things and makes all the right midnight runs, but she catches looks from him sometimes, but she shakes her head and pretends its' not real. She's perfected the art of pretending, just like in high school when she stayed with Ron because it was safer.

The four grow, and they build families and homes, and two learn sometimes its' best to pretend. They spend a lifetime together, the four of them, as friends and they were _so_ lucky to find each other, but not lucky enough to end up with the right one.


End file.
